Sealing rings generally are employed along the periphery of an integrated circuit (IC). A reason is that when the ICs are cut away from the wafers (upon with the IC are manufactured) the saw will penetrate or cut through a protective overcoat. Penetrating the protective overcoat of an IC can allow contaminants to diffuse into the active areas of the IC. However, there has been very little (if any) attention to address contamination diffusion within an IC because there are very few applications where a protective overcoat will be penetrated as part of the manufacturing process. As a result there is a need for a method and or apparatus for reducing diffusion of contaminants within an IC when the protective overcoat has been penetrated as part of the manufacturing process.
Some conventional methods and apparatuses are: U.S. Patent Pre-Grant Publ. No. 2009/0294897; U.S. Patent Pre-Grant Publ. No. 2005/0248025; and PCT Publ. No. WO2010070704.